


Dalliance

by lofty



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Class Differences, F/M, Forbidden Love, Mutual Pining, Priscilla to the Rescue, other characters not tagged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 05:58:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15382197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lofty/pseuds/lofty
Summary: The wyvern lord is beyond earshot and Priscilla’s voice tinkles like a delicate bell, engulfed by the greater clamor of warfare. It would be a fool’s errand to prolong a chase she could never win, to cry out in a world that silences her. She submits to that fact alone, but not to fate, not when it’s still in her hands, and if she can’t use her hooves or her voice, there must be something she can do yet.





	Dalliance

**Author's Note:**

> This quick little fic emerged sporadically and was inspired by my stupid decision and subsequent rectification playing chapter 30E of Blazing Sword, and these two had their support maxed, so naturally I milked it a little. Basically I almost killed Heath because I was half-asleep at the controls. I'm thinking maybe I should put a Delphi Shield on him.

The whoosh of expansive, membranous wings beat steadily closer as a celadon wyvern scales the air above Ostia’s castle town. Though ordinarily a potential source of prey for wild wyverns, the mare he closes in on remains relaxed, her ears pricked backwards to hear the wind shift around the great reptilian beast but her head hanging low and hind leg cocked. Even her rider makes no hurry in bracing for the draconic arrival, as though she fully expects when she guides her horse into a rotation that those wings belong to Heath and his Hyperion.

His wingbeats hasten as he lands with a resonant thump onto the streets, scattering a cloud of dust with his weight, and Heath offers the troubadour an easy smile as he commands Hyperion to crouch. Priscilla returns it with a slight crease in the line of her small mouth, a subtle gesture but completely unaffected. In his arms, Heath cradles a bundle of wares, magic staves jutting out over his shoulder as dismounts his wyvern with a kick and shifts the collection around to better give it to her. 

“We don’t have much time to dawdle, and I know you wanted to hover close to your brother while he raises hell in the arena.” He extends a Recover for her to take. “So I figured I’d fetch you some supplies while I got mine.”

She closes her fingers around its shaft gratefully. “Thank you, Heath.” Her voice is so soft, so crystalline that he wishes she would say more, even if a touch of sadness always manages to permeate even her happier sentiments. “It was kind of you to think of me.”

Heath works through his thoughts and pulls a frown to match them. “I hate to see you out on the battlefield. You do good work out there, but the fighting does not suit you.”

“The battlefields are places of savagery and misery, but they are the only places that bind us together.” She leans the staff against her other palm, the sweep of her eyelashes curtaining the forlorn gaze she offers it as she runs a silk-sheathed finger down its expanse. “So long as they have the power to do that, may… the war never end…”

“Priscilla…”

She has always despised the war, shed tears for blood in equal exchange. To hear her profess such a thing weighs so much. The days they have left for each other are meted out solely in their next voyage across the sea, the next battle that will be the culmination of their long journey with Hector, Eliwood, and Lyn. Whether they emerge victorious or defeated, they know it will be the end for them. An Etrurian noble can’t stay with a deserter from Bern, lest the end of them be wrought even more brutally than a tearful goodbye. And so, they cherish every minute together like it means an hour.

“Are you finished with your shopping?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Then…”

“Of course. I’ll stay right here.”

Whenever he assures that, her face always shines, breaking apart any trace of her characteristic melancholy for a happy girl he wishes he could encourage out of her for the rest of their days. She, in turn, dismounts, not needing him to help her off her horse but graciously allowing him to handle her anyway. He wraps his arms around her slender waist, and burns the shape of her into his mind so he can hold onto the feeling even when she is gone. Those precious seconds alone will endure for a lifetime.

* * *

  
Morphs creep all over the isle: by dilapidated buildings, in the forests, in the fenlands, beyond the mountainous hills. Even before they could ever reach Nergal, yet another battle erupted before their army. This purchased more precious time, even if it means they have to spend it fending for their lives. In particular, many of Limstella’s morph soldiers pelt attacks on them from great distances, trying to pick off the weakest or most vulnerable of their group first. It made advancing across the land a challenge. Not only that, but morphs materialize at will, creating instantaneous reinforcements.

Across the peaks, a platoon of fresh wyvern lords soars into view. They’re morphs like any of the others, but that doesn’t make them any less formidable than flesh and blood born from natural causes: in fact, they’re forces to be reckoned with. Heath spots them the moment they appear over the horizon. The chaos of battle churns all around his position, dividing the focus of his allies away from the threats looming ahead. If allowed to scale the mountain ranges and fly through the fields, they could easily ravage any one opponent of their choosing. His eyes fall to Nino, who, while gifted in her magic, lags behind in experience. Her skirts and cape billow around her childlike form as she beckons thunder upon her heavily-armored foe. Merlinus bustles about the convoy wagon in a busy, frenzied tizzy. Heath fixes his gaze upon the mountains again and snaps his reins. Hyperion pumps his wings and leaves the grass.

“This could spell trouble if I don’t take care of them sooner. Florina and the others are engaged further south,” he tells Priscilla. She nods, understanding but reluctant, and averts her eyes to the saltmeadow cordgrass shivering against the wind in unruly tufts.

“Please come back in one piece.”

“I will. That, I will guarantee. I’m not very lovable when I’m chunks of meat.” Priscilla’s face wrinkles painfully, and he stops chuckling through his nose at his own remark and amends his blooper with haste. “Sorry. That was a bit crude of me to say to you.”

“…It’s fine. I am just worried, that’s all.”

“I promise I’ll make short work of them and return. I’ve taken on more than this before and survived beautifully.”

Hyperion takes flight. Priscilla watches him grow smaller with a sunken chest, wary of guarantees, and with the edge of her awareness still locked on the east, she shepherds the rest of her attention into her next course of action. Mark’s voice drifts into her ear, and she listens:

“…besides, I just heard word of a ballistician located due south of those mountains, by some old ruins.”

He’s engaged in a conversation with Eliwood, who had just ridden up a few moments ago for some brief recon before Heath left. Whatever the lord says next trails off muted by the alarm that seizes Priscilla by that snippet of information alone. She digs her heels into her stirrups and almost thrusts her arm out of its socket waving it high enough for Heath if he should ever look back.

“Wait! Heath!” Kicking her horse into a robust gallup, she rides closer, hoping she can snag him in time. “It’s too dangerous! Fall back!” 

The wyvern lord is beyond earshot and Priscilla’s voice tinkles like a delicate bell, engulfed by the greater clamor of warfare. It would be a fool’s errand to prolong a chase she could never win, to cry out in a world that silences her. She submits to that fact alone, but not to fate, not when it’s still in her hands, and if she can’t use her hooves or her voice, there must be something she can do yet.

Heath must not know what kind of danger he’s putting himself in, and she doesn’t want him to find out when an arrow knocks him out of the sky and he falls prey to the finishing blows of lances aplenty. It’s too soon to bid him farewell, and she doesn’t want it to fall unheard upon dead ears. She can trust in his fighting prowess, but she’s through relying on faith’s crumbled pillars to prop her up. There are some things she must do for herself if she wants her way.

* * *

  


It swiftly becomes clear to Heath that the nearer he draws to his target, the more in over his head he might be. 

He felt confident in gambling the odds of his fighting ability against a few wyvern lords like himself, but over the mountain wait still more combatants. Such an outcome is so par for the course, but he did not fully heed his gut or pay it proper enough mind. Oh, sure— their presence would be meaningless under most circumstances; without wings, they could never reach him as he soars above the peaks. But when a druid bears the fell pages of an Eclipse and an archer mounts his ballista at the sight of an airborne opponent, the hot-cold moisture of sweat sticks uncomfortably inside his gauntlets as he reinforces his grip on his silver lance. He scatters his focus across all of his new enemies, tries not to count them, and pits most of it on the wyvern-bound one he deemed most dangerous to his comrades. 

Knowing death is just a coin-toss away, all of Heath’s regrets lifelong and current trickle in and settle at the base of his heart: not having recognized Bern’s corruption sooner; being unable to prevent the deaths of his wingmates when they deserted; being so careless in battle, careless enough to flirt with a premature death before he can see the end of their saga with Nergal, before he could even grant Priscilla so much as a goodbye. He gave her his word he would survive this, didn’t he? He doesn’t want to imagine her face drawn in the agony his untimely death would bring her.

“I really messed up this time, didn’t I, Hyperion?” he mutters. The only thing left to do when the stakes are so high is contest with these odds slanted against him if he ever wants to return to her side again. “We have no choice but to do our best, though.”

Steeled for this, it takes him by surprise when a pillar of light surrounds him and transports him away from the treacherous mountainside. His threats evaporate only to be replaced by one of his greatest comforts, though she drills a stern look into him touched by the gratefulness she feels to have him secure out of arrow’s range. Bewildered, Hyperion touches ground on all fours and twists his long neck about, flaring his nostrils and flashing his eyes as he acclimatizes himself to the abrupt change in his current location. 

“Someday, you must leave me,” Priscilla begins with a wavering timbre she tries to tame, resting her Rescue staff horizontally across her lap. “I have painstakingly come to accept that. As long as your heart still beats somewhere on Elibe, I can still find some peace in mine. But what I will _not_ abide by is a world without you in it. Please understand my selfish feelings.”

Like his mount, Heath still reels from the staggering change in scenery, the sudden diffusion of all the adrenaline that was building when he thought he had a decent chance at dying. It’s enough to push a wheezy sort of laugh from him as he shakes the surprise off and looks at Priscilla with a fresher regard. It’s hard not to appreciate the dignified boldness she wears over her frightened soul, the passion of her longing for a vagabond with a tidy bounty posted to his head. Though it’s buried behind a blanket of clouds, the sun’s light catches in his striking eyes.

“Forgive my lack of foresight, Priscilla. I really was up to my neck in peril. I may just owe you my life.”

The lights in his eyes can’t hold a candle to hers, which dance to the grief of what may have been. Her gemlike green eyes shimmering at him with all the facets of her contradictory feelings pull him in, and he holds his hands out for her to clasp, which she does with subdued fervor, squeezing at his fingers and biting her lip as she craves more than just his gloved hands in hers. 

“If I could but only lay proper claim your life… so that it may become part of mine, I would gladly allow you to pay your debt to me.”

“You really do have a way with words, don’t you?”

He would love to give her so much more than their fleeting engagements. In the midst of battle, time is scarcer than the lulls of nightfall to fully enjoy each other’s company, and his love for her sears inside his chest so hotly in this moment it might just shatter his ribs. If only he could afford an embrace, a kiss, even one to her precious little fingers squeezing his, but to bring too much attention to their illicit bond.

“Hey! Would you lovebirds just get a tent already?!” jeers Serra with a hand propped on her hip, strident and loud even from her distance. “We’re kind of in the middle of a battle here?”

Thrown from their moment, they retreat from each other as though touching a hot furnace, their faces blazing in sudden shame. So much for not bringing attention to their all-too-public display of affection…

Raven gives a roll of his arm with a suspicious leer honed in on the man courting his sister. Erring on the side of caution and not wanting to make an enemy of an ally in the middle of battle, Heath straightens up in his saddle and finds the guts to look at Priscilla again.

“Why don’t we see if Mark doesn't want us to fight somewhere else?”

She takes notice of her surly brother, and while privately enthralled and vindicated by provoking what seems to be jealousy out of him on her behalf, she agrees with her lover. “Wherever you go, I won’t let it be far from my side again.”

* * *

  


“Lord Raymond? What are you glaring at?” questions Lucius on his curious approach. Raven doesn’t even acknowledge him. The question he raises could very well be for himself alone.

“Is he… courting Priscilla?”

Serra bursts out in shrill peals of laughter, accidentally snorting but pretending she didn’t by clearing her throat and erecting her posture. “Uh, hello? He’s only been doing it for a long time now, and nobody talks about it, but basically everyone knows! Which army were _you_ fighting for?" She leans forward and cocks a cheeky grin. "You mean you never noticed?”

“No. I’ve had other things on my mind!” Raven’s eyes narrow as he watches them clear the area. “Where are they going? What is he planning…? That’s it. I’m—”

Lucius stops him from stomping off by clumsily plastering himself to his backside. It shouldn’t be effective, but it is.

“What are you, anyway? Her father?" he remarks once his face is freed. "Just leave her be. She looks happy.”

"Yeah. Let them have some alone time!" The cleric winks suggestively. "They probably need it."

Raven tenses up all over again. Lucius sulks.

"Serra, you're not helping..."

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then the ending got increasingly stupid. I had to backspace so many different times because I kept writing crack, giggling at my own contrived and completely inappropriate dialogue, and then erasing it because I have to have SOME self-control. Raven asked Lucius to hold his earrings. I don't think that would have worked.


End file.
